Tara (00:57):
Hello, it's episode 29 of The Art of Estate Planning Podcast, and as usual, I am joined by my lovely co-host, Carrie. Hi, Carrie.
Carrie (01:07):
I always love the descriptors lovely. Only when I'm asleep, Tara.
Tara (01:13):
Absolutely not! You're lovely all the time and joy and a delight to collaborate with.
Carrie (01:19):
I'm going to confess Tara about this topic. I'm a bit nervous because I think that I failed at this, which is something that I think will be really interesting to share with people because I think it's a really great learning lesson for some, if you want to talk about, maybe sorry to drop that bomb, we're going to talk about failure today, but I think that this is something that I feel like it's good to share, but it was a really hard lesson for me to learn.
Tara (01:43):
Really? Okay. I am fascinated because I don't even know how you can fail at this, so I can't wait to hear. So this episode is about what do we outsource versus what do we do ourselves? And it's a bit random for an estate planning podcast, but from time to time in our TT Pecedents Club, we get discussions about, oh, how are you doing this? How are you doing that? And I just find it fascinating to hear everyone's different takes on things and some people are doing things themselves. Other people. I've got a guy or a gal who does this for me. And I personally as well, I love a business podcast and I don't know, a self-improvement podcast. And I have a particular podcast that I listen to by an Australian lady called Denise Duffield Thomas, and I love her stuff. It's actually so woowoo. It's all about manifesting money. So it's very woowoo and I'm actually not that crunchy or woowoo myself, but she's a very successful business woman in the digital marketing space as well. So that's why I like her and I feel like she's my personal mentor and best friend, even though I don't even know her.
Carrie (03:03):
Your parasocial bestie.
Tara (03:05):
Exactly, exactly. But obviously she talks about money all the time, and she's very wealthy. She's made millions of dollars. And I actually myself just come from a humble background in rural Bundaberg. I went to a high school in the lowest socioeconomic community in Queensland, and I don't mix and mingle with that many millionaires or people who openly say they're millionaires. Maybe I do and I just don't know. But I just think we just don't know about different ways to live our lives or different ways and paths to success if we're not exposed to them and people don't hear about them.
(03:47):
And I'm rambling now, but the reason I'm talking about Denise Duffield Thomas is because from time to time she shares how she gets things done in her life and what she outsources and what she does and where she gets help. And for me, hearing about people's areas of people's lives where they get help has been tremendously freeing for me personally and to sort of overcome some of the limiting beliefs or just things that I do in my life that I've never even questioned to try and do things differently or to give me back more time in my life or with my kids or to help me go faster in my business.
(04:32):
So this was really just a chat about all the things that we have to do, and especially in this day and age, it's just a never ending list of things in our life. It's obviously not an exhaustive list, but yeah, I just think it's interesting to hear what we've outsourced that's not worked or gone poorly, what we do ourselves because we love it or it makes more sense, or just to have a little bit of a conversation going. And hopefully if you are there feeling overwhelmed, then maybe this will give you permission to get a bit more help and support in your life.
Carrie (05:07):
So this is where I come in and say, when I saw this was your topic Tara, I thought I'm the worst person to talk about this for two reasons. I mean, number one, my first constructed sentence apparently as a child was my do it myself. And still very much, I mean, if I was in that mental sort of space and I did something like that, my mother would say that under her breath might do it myself, even as an adult. And also, I mean ultimately I use this word, and that's a whole other appointment with my psychologist to talk about, but my law firm failed. I kind of wound up my client law firm into another law firm with someone else because I was not good at outsourcing what needed to be outsourced. And so I thought this made me the worst person, but I actually think it makes me the best person to speak about this because I think that when we do have this kind of position, this, I call it conceited independence, that we have to kind of do all these things ourselves.
(05:59):
And I think that there's so much good that comes from letting those things go in so many different things. So yes, obviously we're talking about literally getting it off your plate, but also when you get it off your plate, that process of transferring it over to another person actually helps you be a little bit more accountable for some of the things that they're doing now. So the example I give is the law firm. I'm now doing most of my consulting work to has a dedicated person in house to do a lot of the project work. And so not only has it taken the project work off my plate, so to speak, but she's there buzzing me saying, Hey, you owe me this to be able to deliver that project. So I think that if you are the me, the my do it myself person, and you're listening, this is the permission you need to get it off your plate and actually to help you do better generally, because it will keep you accountable for a lot of other things as well.
Tara (06:57):
Carrie, all of that is so fascinating. And also I just want to say your law firm did not fail.
Carrie (07:04):
I know, I know, but I mean, it came to the point where I was at Law Biz Con last year. So if you are listening to us and you haven't heard of Law Biz Con and Caralee, you need to look up Law Biz Con and come and join us at the best party on the Gold Coast in, I think it's May this year. But I was there and I was sitting at a table and I'm like, holy smokes, I need to get someone else. And so I kind of came to the discussion of I either need to get someone else or the option was to merge in now for a few different reasons I chose the merge in, but I think that that's the point is that come to Jesus moment, so to speak, only came there. I was just at the bottom of my energy levels and my mental capacity.
(07:47):
I was being all things to everybody. And so I think that from my experience, I'm hoping people will go, okay, if I got to the point, I didn't want to do the business of law. Yes, you can do the business of law, but I was not good at X, Y, Z. Why was I doing my own bookkeeping? Why, why, why? So when you sit down and you go to open your own firm, think about all those things that you love about the law, and those are the things we want you to focus on and then get the support you need outside of that to do the other things. I have another confession, Tara, as well, that I thought I might share. Okay, so please don't hate me. When I first started helping Tara out at the Art of Estate planning was when she went on and he leave.
(08:34):
And I actually wasn't using Tara's precedents when I first started working with Tara, and it took me kind of this big jump to get over to do that. And there was lots of kind of changes I was always making based on what I was learning, even just internally with other members in the TT Precedents Club. And I kind of got to a point, why on earth am I still doing this? And it was a combination of a sliver of ego mixed with this fear of having to make the jump of moving over. And so once I realised, hold on, Tara's doing all this work for me with her precedence, all I've literally got to do is I actually finally watched the instructions on how to move it over to Smokeball, and I was like, oh my God, this is so easy. Why the hell haven't I done this earlier? So that's my confession, first of all, but I think that it becomes this really big roadblock in our mind that we actually stop even kind of asking for help. So if you are listening and there's all these things going on, this is your moment to go, what of these jobs do I absolutely not have time to do, don't want to do, don't like doing, can't do as well as someone else can and find a new home for those jobs?
Tara (09:47):
I think that's a great criteria, isn't it? If something is ticking any one of those things. Yeah, if you love doing something, then don't just for the sake of it. But yeah, I guess, and this is not, I never want anyone to feel bad about their choices or decisions or I loved getting on here and my soapbox and just telling people what I think, but I totally acknowledged that my way is not the right way for everyone or probably even myself. And I too am guilty. It was good for me to do this list actually. I was like, I could outsource way more than I do.
Carrie (10:26):
Well, I took it back to everybody that knows me. I hate cleaning. If I could have a house spouse, that would be my dream because I hate the whole domestic duty stuff. And so I started thinking, why am I doing this still? And so I have a cleaner? That was my goal when I reached a certain amount of income. That's my first treat to myself. I also know that I'm not great with preparing meals because my brain does not work that way, number one. And number two, I live on my own. It's really, really hard to do really good meal planning. So I outsourced it. I now have one of those meal services that does all of the thinking for me. So if I'm using those principles in my personal life, why am I not dragging them across into my professional life?
Tara (12:09):
Carrie, I've actually, when I did this list, I've got a heap of personal things on it too because I think you can't necessarily separate the two if you are struggling. So for me, for instance, having time to go for a walk, that's when I get a heap of ideas for the business and I find a lot of things click in place for me if I actually give myself a bit of space away from the desk and the doing of the work. So I kind of almost think of it as like I'm in CEO mode when I'm away from the tools because, and that's where I'm like, okay, actually here's something I should be doing for a long-term vision perspective, or I get to listen to my podcasts or read my business books. And that's where I get ideas that ultimately push the business forward. And I think it's the personal stuff that eats into that ideating time. So I do think as part of this conversation, a little bit of, yeah, what's going on in your, what can you outsource in your personal life is just as important.
Carrie (13:24):
Well, I mean, we were just talking Tara before we started to record this podcast about internet speed. So with the internet speed for those listening, it's not just the default. You don't just have to have the default. But I only learned that because I finally started outsourcing my IT to a proper IT person who said, Hey, these are the other things I can help you with. And he showed me like, "holy smokes, you're on the lowest download and upload speed, but you're still paying $85 or $90 or something for an extra 30 bucks a month. You can have the absolute highest one". And because my business is entirely, well, not entirely largely online, I'm just like, that's a no-brainer for me to make my job so much easier. So I think that if you're not giving yourself the space to even ask some of those questions, and that will affect obviously my personal life for when I watch all of my terrible shows on TV as well. But I think that they do intertwine and you've got to give yourself the brain space to be able to think about those.
Tara (14:21):
So if anyone is like, oh, I don't even really know about outsourcing or I've never turned my mind to it, I think a great place to start is the four-hour Work Week by Tim Ferris. I mean, it's been around for a long time. I feel like I was first exposed to that 15 years ago or something. So I dunno if he keeps updating it. I haven't read it since then, but it was a real turning point in my professional career and life because I came from a family where both my parents do everything themselves to the point that they will miss out rather than engage a contractor. I am not that handy at anything, and I married someone who's even less handy. So we have to...
Carrie (15:06):
That's what happens when you marry someone that wants to do a PhD, Tara.
Tara (15:10):
Yeah right? There's a lot about shoulders, but everything else. So we do have to outsource. But what it got me thinking about basically the premise from the four hour work week is work out what your hourly rate is in the sense of if you are working, what can you be bringing in, what's your hourly rate of that? And then everything else that you can get someone else to do for a lower price, then you should. So you are better off at your desk earning like your rate. So if it's like, okay, my every hour I work at my desk, I bring in $300. So anything that you can pay, or sorry, $300 an hour. So if you can get a cleaner to come and clean your house for $40 an hour, then you are better off sitting at your desk earning that $300 an hour and paying someone $40 an hour to clean your house or mow your lawn or do your pool or whatever it is.
(16:09):
So that's kind of like the premise now, it's hard when you're like, I'm on salary so I don't get paid more for every hour I work or whatever. But you've even got to think, what's your leisure time worth? What is it worth to you whether to your soul and your joy in life and your health or just even to having the brain space to contribute to your CEO role in your business, but what is that worth it to you so that you are having space and time away? And then the other thing that I just want to mention if you're not doing it is that there's so many outsourcing platforms out there like Upwork or Fiverr. I've been using Upwork for years, so that's my favourite platform. But that gets you access to talent all over the world at different exchange rates, and you can.
(17:04):
So if there's not somebody who does the service locally to you at a price that makes sense, there might be someone if it's, obviously you can't outsource cleaning your house over the internet, but if it's designing all your graphics for social media, that can be done by anyone anywhere in the world. And because of the exchange rate of the US dollar, it might be a very good price to you and an exceptional price to them because of the currency. Like someone in the Philippines, if they're getting paid in the US dollar, that's a really good deal for them and that they might come to the table and say, well, I'm prepared to do this work for X amount, which actually a really good deal for you too. So there's those types of platforms as well that you can leverage to try and see if there's a way you can get help with different things.
Carrie (17:59):
Yeah, I think whatever it takes is kind of my point, Tara, to help you live your best life and give you the brain space that you need to do the things that you love, whether it be professionally or personally. I think that when we talk about outsourcing as well, there's a small child in me that kind of says, is this just passing on a shitty job to someone else? I don't think that's necessarily the case. And also if we are thinking about stuff to hand on to other staff members, talking with the staff members about things that they're good at as well and how to collaboratively work together in a way that makes sense. So for example, if you've got a paralegal and you're finding that they're not particularly great at this element, how can you support them to do the best version of their work? Because then that frees up stuff for you as well. So I think that when we talk about outsourcing, it kind of is a bit of a chain down. It doesn't necessarily just stop at one person. So we are not necessarily passing on yuck jobs to people that are juniors or under us. We're actually just trying to find the best person for that job.
Tara (19:04):
Yeah, exactly. And I just keep coming back to what is your highest and best purpose? There will be things that only you can do and there'll be things that you or someone else can do. So free yourself up so that you can do the things that only you can do, because they're never going to get done if you don't have the time. So yeah, I don't know. Is it boring if we just list things we outsource?
Carrie (19:30):
No, I think it's good to hear what if you are listening and you're like, I never thought about that. Something that I could outsource as a lawyer. I mean, I think maybe if we start talking about outsourcing personal stuff, I've already talked about my cleaning, so I think that's checked on. But professionally, I think there's a lot that we don't consider. As I said, the internet was something that you just don't even really think about. So tell me what yours are.
Tara (19:54):
Yeah, well, on that front, I only thought about the internet when you mentioned it 10 minutes ago, so I need to go look into that. But Denise Duffield Thomas, my mentor, who doesn't know who I am, she calls them upgrades. So on the cleaner front, I actually made an upgrade maybe 18 months ago, and it's been life changing because I used to have a cleaner who cleaned the house fortnightly, and I've had one for 10 years or something. But I recently got them to start changing all the linens and washing the sheets as well, which obviously in a house that was fine when it was just me. But now we've got a whole family and a spare bedroom that gets used all the time. And I was on my day off with the kids around me trying to change the linens, and I was like, why am I doing this sucks. So I've just found a cleaner that can do that for me too. And I'm like, great, love it. I hate changing the sheets and doing the dunas. So even outsource it and upgrade it.
Carrie (20:57):
That's like me. I've just thought about, do I get an ironing lady? I have all these beautiful app bits, but I hate ironing, hate, hate, hate, hate, hate. And before you say, get a steamer, yes, I've got a steamer, and it's the same problem.
Tara (21:08):
No brainer. You have permission, Carrie. We spent nearly $5,000 on a brand new mower because when we moved to Bundaberg, we bought a house with half an acre, and we went from no grass. We had a tiny patch of one metre square that our neighbour mowed for us to half an acre. And I was like, well, we need a molar, and neither of us know how to fix a broken molar, so get a new one that won't break down. But then we realised even that was so much work, so now we just have a molar guy.
Carrie (21:43):
So you spend five grand on a mower, and if you add up what a mower man would cost, it'd probably be the same as the wear and tear on a mower.
Tara (21:49):
And then because we never use the actual mower, it doesn't even go because the battery's flat. So we are trying to decide if we sell it or if we will do more mowing.
Carrie (21:58):
And our podcast about how to do your life better.
Tara (22:01):
Well, every time they come, I feel so bad for the mower, it's so hot here. I'm in Bundaberg, it's so humid. And I'm like, that is the toughest job ever. But he's kind of sitting in that tiny office staring at a screen is the worst job I could possibly do. Keep me upside any day.
Carrie (22:22):
Everybody's found their sweet spot in that instance.
Tara (22:25):
Yeah. So anyway,
Carrie (22:27):
Just if we are moving this over then to the professional realm outside of Mower steamers and Cleaners, what I wanted to talk about, I mean, I know that we've had Lee here on the podcast before. If you've not got any of Carly's Kool-Aid yet, jump online, have a look at Scalable Law because she helps give you some of the tools to do the work that you can then help you understand the systems to outsource. I think that's my understanding, Tara. So for example, I've said very clearly before, I didn't like the business side of law. That doesn't mean where I'm working now that they want to start doing forecasting. I'm not happy to do that, I'm happy to do that. I just don't want to do any other thing behind that. I can put numbers in a spreadsheet, I can do that, but I don't want to do anything else.
(23:11):
So if you are struggling with the business aspect of law and how to grow, Caralee and Scalable Law are an incredible resource for you. And I also understand within that it's not just things like financial, but there's also things like a marketing element, those sorts of things as well. So Tara, if you want to jump in, but I think that as lawyers understanding about social media isn't something that comes naturally, and it's also something that you can't just read a book and know how to do it. So getting some assistance with that is really critical.
Tara (23:43):
Oh, it's huge. And Facebook ads is a really good one because I've got quite a few friends and members who do their own Facebook ads, but I have been working with an ad agency to do mine because I just went, you know what this is. So every time I went into that part of the Facebook Ads manager, my eyes glazed over and I was like, I'm going to have to do some serious work to upskill here and all over again. Totally. And I was like, especially it's got immediate financial consequences because you are spending the ad money, but also the opportunity cost of you doing it poorly and not getting the traction and return on your ads. So I was like, there's people who, this is their whole career and their whole job. I am just going to bring in the experts because I don't want to invest the time.
(24:41):
I was going to have to probably buy an online course to learn how to do it and then invest the time. So I have an ads agency who run all my ads, but I also make a lot of my own social content. So I work collaboratively with the ads agency. They do a lot of the copywriting, or I'll give them the idea and the angle, but then they'll do the fancy sales writing and the graphic and all of that. But then on the other point, on our daily posts, that's all the content that I've written and I could outsource. There's so many people to outsource that too, but I choose not to outsource that because I think my particular brand voice, oh, I don't want to say it's important. That just sounds, but I do want it to have me in it.
Carrie (25:36):
I think that's kind of the point though, Tara, the outsourcing doesn't have to be a hundred percent of the whole task. You just don't just say goodbye to marketing and off it goes. Right? You can kind of be working collaboratively with those that you're outsourcing to still keep the bits that are important to you or you think that you enjoy, but it's actually engaging someone that actually can help you. If, for example, with your lawn mowing scenario, if you enjoyed throwing some fertiliser around, fine, throw some fertiliser around, keep that element of it. We're not going a hundred percent of lawn care in the hands of the lawn, man. So the same thing when you're looking at your business, I mean is again, I keep talking about Caralee, you don't have to give a hundred percent of your financial control over to someone else, but you can keep little bits that help you keep it authentic to what's right for you.
Tara (26:21):
So with the social posts, I come up with the idea, and I usually write the caption or I, it might get chatGPT to help me if I'm feeling not very creative. But the idea will come from something I've heard in the TT Precedents Club, hot seats or something I've seen in a Facebook or just something that I've thought about from a technical or practical level that only I can come up with because I have the subject matter expertise and in the community thinking about it, I can't out if I just outsourced all of the ideation to someone like a social media manager or my Facebook advertising agency. Everything would be really superficial, high level and with no depth. So I feel like it's important for me to keep trying to find things that I can talk and connect with my audience over. Then I'll go, okay, I've got an idea.
(27:27):
And we have a beautiful assistant, Kat. I'll be like, "Kat, I need a post or a graphic in Canva that does this" or "here's an example that I want you to use as an inspiration" or "it's got to look like this". And she will be the one designing it in Canva because my skills are really basic, super slow, and I can never come up with anything as good as hers anyway. And then she puts it in our scheduler. So when it was quiet in January, she sat down and scheduled an entire year's worth of social media posts in our scheduler that I had written. She had helped me with the graphics and we recycle and reuse them a couple of times a year and that type of thing. So I'm doing it myself, but I've still had a huge amount
Carrie (28:20):
Of help. Just a reminder that Tara is the most organised person you'll ever meet, a whole year of social media sorted out.
Tara (28:28):
I dunno if people think that's a good idea or not, but for me, I think I did it when I first went on maternity leave with my first child, and I've never looked back because I don't always feel like raking a post, but I get a post out every day because I have this done. And if I'm feeling creative, I'll jump in and change it up or put a new one in. But. you know.
Carrie (28:49):
Well, I mean, as Pat said, Tara, every time I open Instagram, Tara's bloody there. But the point is, is that more engagement means more kind of leads in. So Tara's superpower, if you dunno already is her diligence. And the only way that you can keep those sorts of things going is by having those tools and that process. Tara, I actually kind of just wrote what I thought were the major kind of five things to outsource in law. So I've just kind of said finance here generally. And what I mean by that is you've got to have a good accountant, you've got to have a good planner, and you've got to have the tools to actually be able to run the business underneath. So that's where Caralee would fit in. The second one was marketing. Okay, so here, as I said, there's different schemes in here.
(29:35):
You can have obviously your social media, your marketing team, and then within that, different members of team taking on different aspects of that. I mean, if you are fighting with a computer every day, that's lost time. So get an IT team. The next one kind of rolls into that, but it is still separate, which is AI and tech. So if you are manually doing something that AI can already do, outsource that to AI. So get something in place. If you're not already across what something like Zapier is, you're already behind the ball. So looking at those sorts of things to take some of those jobs off you that aren't actually creating any value for you or your clients. And then finally, I've put in drafting here. And what I mean by that is if you're a lawyer and you're doing all the drafting on your own, that's not the best love language you can have.
(30:22):
And what I mean by that, there's a couple of elements to that. The first one is actually kind of just generating out your documents. By doing that, you're taking away some of the boring stuff, alright for you if you're the lawyer, you're also getting two sets of eyes on the documents so that there's less chance of say errors, those sorts of things. But also when I talk about drafting, I mean looking at what you're using to draught as well. So obviously we have a precedent purchase option where you can buy something that is pre-made and ready for you to hit the ground running when you are starting up or changing over systems and processes. So if you are trying to create something from scratch, I still hear it in my ears, Tara says, don't reinvent the wheel. So if there's something already working, try not to create time in having to do something that is already there.
Tara (31:09):
And can I just say the precedents integrate with Smokeball leap and action step. So that's supercharging it even more because it will remove a lot of your manual decision making and error opportunities as well. So there's smart precedent rather than doing a saver from the last client and then this takes it to the next level.
Carrie (31:36):
Yeah, so I mean those were my major five areas of your law firm, but I'm one person. I didn't know if you had anything to add to that, Tara.
Tara (31:43):
Oh look, there's so much, right? And I think everyone has their own unique list. You said you outsource food. I would never outsource food unless I had a personal chef because I have a huge amount of intolerances and I'm really particular about what I eat. And I don't mind, I mean I definitely get sick of thinking of things for dinner, but I don't mind food preparation, whereas everyone is going to have their own version of that. So it's not about what's right and what's wrong. But I actually think I came up with this topic because we had a debate about outsourcing the bookkeeping, and I just feel like the likelihood of you being really passionate about doing your reconciliations is low. And even though you feel like it doesn't take you that much time, outsource it, it takes you some time and some mental space and it recurs monthly and then you have to go and do the bs and by the time you add it up, it might be five hours a month or whatever, but that's time that you could totally commit to something that only you can do, like your genius zone of marketing or coming up with a new resource or talking to a reporter to be profiled in a financial review article or something like that.
(33:08):
So yeah, I think all these little things that you just do yourself add up. And Carrie, I love what you said, your point about if you can't outsource it, then automate it. See if you can find a way. For instance, I still have to do my own grocery shopping. My goal is to level up to housekeeper instead of a cleaner who can cook things the way I like and buy with groceries. So that's coming I guess. But in the meantime, I've just automated a whole heap of things that cause us annoyance. And it could be if you are in an office like Paper and Ink, just come on a schedule. I've got our toilet paper on a schedule, our nappies, my milk, our coffee, all of these, it's like a direct debit and they just arrive on the doorstep at an interval. So we never run out.
(34:02):
I never have to worry or think about it. All the billing, all your customer nurture Zapier, your email sequences, all of that, if you've got time and space, you can actually step back and go, oh, can I re-engineer this process to automate something so that I never have to do this again? And that's what I love. And tying that into your sales funnel as well, that's a huge area that Caralee and her Scalable Law programme can add a lot of value in because she helps you work out how do you actually automate your sales process. So you just keep getting in all those new leads, I guess. Yeah, so there's so many things and maybe we should take the specific automation and outsourcing conversation to the Facebook group. But I guess, and then look, maybe I'm coming at this with my bias of growing up in a working class community, being a woman who born in the eighties who was told you can do everything and be everything, but you have to do it yourself.
(35:08):
I just want people to know that they have total permission to get help. You don't have to do it yourself. You're not lazy, you deserve to rest. And it wasn't actually, this really clicked for me when I became the breadwinner of our family and especially when we had children and my husband was like, look at home looking after the child, because I sort of looked at everything that's on everyone's plate. And I also went, oh, okay, if I myself to our friend's husbands who are the breadwinners and their wives are the stay at home, what do their husbands do compared to what I have to do? And it really gave me a lot of permission to go, I'm not doing that anymore. And that didn't mean it went from my list to my husband's list together. We just went, well, he's looking after the baby.
(36:04):
He can't do it either, so we've got to outsource it. Whereas I think maybe culturally we're sort of taught that we have to just suck it up and find a way and do it and do it all and do everything and not complain. So this is your permission to outsource it, get help, pay the money. I think long-term you'll get the return on the investment, especially if you're running a business like you, your earning potential is infinite and every amount of time that you have to dedicate back into your business, you will get that back. So think about your hourly rate, and I give you permission to outsource.
Carrie (36:45):
I think. And because hearing this, Tara, being from a similar background, I get really uncomfortable doing nice things for myself. That mentality around, oh, I just have to do this. My parents worked really hard, my grandparents worked really hard, so I have to work really hard and just do that. What I think, we can't use that same lens, even if we think about it from a law firm sense, that old saying that if a client called you saying, oh, where's this letter of advice? You could say it's in the mail and then write it that day and put it in the mail, and then you've got three days kind of grace. We don't have that anymore. We are literally connected a hundred percent of the time. The only time we're not is when we're asleep or dead.
(37:24):
And so we're living in an incredibly different culture than we were years ago where when you left the office, that was it, and you came home and your spouse was at home and dinner would be ready. Now we have two working spouses, we've got emails, we've got mobile phones that follow us everywhere. This culture of urgency now exists where people expect you to be able to be available 24/7. So if you are using the old lens of I have to do everything myself on modern society and families, they do not fit together. So if you are having to be available all the time, you are going to be more tired. So what are you going to do to help give you your energy back?
Tara (38:02):
Yeah, amen. Actually, before we wrap up, I would be remiss not to mention that I outsource so much to both Kat and also to you Carrie, and just a huge thank you for all the support that you give me because your role and everything that you do is a key to me having the space to be the CEO and have that ideation space. And it was pretty scary for me to go from, I was just running the hot seats. I was like the face of the TT Precedents Club, and it was just me and my community and one of my babies, and I handed that over to Carrie, which I would never have voluntarily done unless I was having another actual baby that I needed to go on maternity leave for. And that was an incredible experience for me because you just hit the ground running, did a better job than I ever did. And you don't totally...
Carrie (39:07):
Correct, but I think this is a good point though, Tara. When you do outsource something, it doesn't turn you into an entitled jerk. I remember, I dunno if I've actually shared this with you, I saw once on a whiteboard that you'd written in your old office something about I can still be a kind and fair boss or something. Oh yes. I dunno what the phrase was. And I'm just like, when we talk about those things, just because you are doing these things and you are kind of handing things off, there are ways to do that with grace, dignity and gratitude. There's ways to do that in that space. It doesn't mean you're not walking around being, oh, this snooty person that has an ironing lady and a cleaning lady and a lawn man and whatever else. No, no, no. You can still be a kind human being and do all those things as well,
Tara (39:49):
And it amplifies your impact, right? Because there's no way we would've been able to help 500 law firms around the country start offering testamentary trusts. If I am doing everything at home and juggling the kids, I don't think I'd even be able to do any work, really. So it just means that by getting support and even support the things now, I didn't necessarily mean to keep Carrie involved in the TT Precedents Club once I came back from maternity leave, but obviously Carrie makes the whole environment so much better. And I actually think there'd be a riot if I back on my ledger. Oh, I dunno about that.
Carrie (40:36):
It does free you up though to do other things and to provide other services, right?
Tara (40:40):
Yeah. I would not have been able to make our new course Testamentary Trust: The Essential Guide for Australian Lawyers. There's no way I would've been able to dedicate the time and space to making that if I'd been just doing all the things that Carrie does in the Art of Estate Planning. So together we are so much stronger, and I think for me, it's been a really great lesson of even the things that I'm like, oh, this is only something I can do. Well actually, it's not even only something that I can do. There's so many things that you can get help for and it can even make it greater. Just by the way, that thing that I had on my whiteboard is it's safe for me to be a kind boss and still have standards and that has nothing to do with you.
Carrie (41:29):
I think I might know where that comes from.
Tara (41:30):
Well, actually, I was really struggling at one point with one of my virtual assistants because I am a details oriented person.
Carrie (41:39):
Oh really? I didn't know that.
Tara (41:41):
And so I really struggle with people who aren't detail oriented, especially when they're my assistant, because I want to be able to trust who I delegate and not micromanage, even though my tendency is to micromanage. And so I was struggling with one of my virtual assistants sort of just making little mistakes and I felt really bad constantly bringing them up. But then I was like, it was undermining my delegation. So that was just a little mantra to me to be like, I can be both. Things can be true. Thankfully, I hardly ever have to look at it now because Carrie and Kat are superstars and everything you guys do is on the money. So yeah, I think hiring well is a really big tip for outsourcing, but that's for another day I think.
(42:27):
Okay, well, this was a random kind of topic, but if you listened to it today, I hope you felt called to it and you get something out of this. If you've got anything that you really want to share with us, we always love to hear it in the Art of Estate Planning Facebook group and we will see you next week.
